Detectives in Walnut Creek, California investigated a man and woman suspected of robbing a liquor store, and stumbled on a fully-functioning DMT lab at their home nearby in Brentwood. Police say that some of the suspects allegedly used explosive materials in the presence of a child to extract and synthesize DMT.

Danielle Kumerow, 42, and Maxwell Hayworth, 44, allegedly entered Hops and Scotch, a Walnut Creek-based liquor store, and robbed them for $50,000 to $60,000 worth of alcohol, in bottles. Walnut Creek, where the liquor store was located, is known for its upscale shopping. The liquor store robbery took place on March 23, at about 12:10 a.m., and video footage shows a man and woman loading bottles of liquor into a Nissan Frontier after cutting a hole into the wall, authorities said. They rented the Frontier ahead of the crime that took place, police said.

The Mercury News reports “the pair became suspects when a rental car used in the break-in was linked back to Kumerow, court records show. But when police showed up to their home on Shasta Daisy Lane in Brentwood, they were surprised to discover lab equipment associated with the psychedelic drug DMT, authorities said.”

CBS News reports that authorities say they found three containers of an explosive compound used in the process to make DMT. Upon learning about a possibly explosive compound, The Walnut Creek Police Department bomb squad was called in and determined that the compound in the containers was triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which is a highly volatile explosive. DMT makers use TATP because it can be easily manufactured from readily accessible reagents and is extremely difficult to detect due to its  lack of UV absorbance, fluorescence, or facile ionization. 

The area in Brentwood was evacuated for safety as crews moved the containers of TATP to another location for detonation, while one container had to be detonated in place. All the detonations reportedly went safely.

Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office announced the operation last month. On the morning of March 26, detectives served a search warrant at a residence in the 800 block of Shasta Daisy Drive.

Johnathan McCarthy, 29, was also arrested and booked into the Martinez Detention Facility on an outstanding warrant for being a parolee at large, the Sheriff’s Office said.

Court records show that both suspects, Kumerow and Hayworth, are facing charges of alleged burglary, grand theft, manufacturing and possessing a controlled substance, and child endangerment. 

One of the suspects walked free after posting bail. Hayworth remains in jail with his bail set at $380,000, but Kumerow posted $250,000 bail and is a free woman while the case is pending. Both are due in court for their next hearing on May 13.

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office announced that they’d be open to tips about the alleged crimes that took place in the Brentwood home.

What DMT Labs Do

While the extraction process involved dangerous chemicals, the compound itself is found throughout nature and used by multiple cultures.

DMT or N, N-Dimethyltryptamine is a substituted tryptamine that occurs naturally in many plants and animals—including the human body—which is structurally similar to psilocybin and produces short, more intense hallucinations. At least one study has shown that the pineal gland has high concentrations of INMT, which has a role in the biosynthesis of DMT which is present in mammalian brains.

DMT labs create the compound in an attempt to produce the powerful, psychedelic effects. It can be smoked as a crystal, eaten or drunk as a tea, injected, or snorted. It’s a bit more than a party drug as the psychedelic experience provides an intense ego shift that can be a death-like purge or bring on an epiphany.

It appears in Amazonian plants used for ayahuasca like chacruna and Mimosa tenuiflora as (5-MeO-DMT) and in certain species of cacti, or in animals like toads as bufotenin (5-HO-DMT).

High Times typically reports on the potential for DMT in the field of medicine, such as its potential to treat depression or other conditions. In a study published in February in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers explored the effect that DMT had on the mental health of study participants. An analysis of the data from both studies showed that participants had a significant reduction in depression symptoms following the administration of DMT, suggesting that the drug might have potential as a quick-acting treatment with therapeutic effects on mood. The study also showed that the intensity of the psychedelic experience with DMT was linked to improvements in mental health.

Though less prevalent than cannabis or psilocybin, DMT labs pop up from time to time. Usually, however, the ability to manufacture it is simply not worth the risks involved.

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Two men are heading to prison for their role in an attempted cannabis robbery that left another man dead.

Jose Antonio Alvarez and Omar Rojo, both aged 25, “entered no contest pleas to voluntary manslaughter and were formally sentenced in late October,” according to Bay Area News Group.

Both Alvarez and Rojo received an identical prison sentence of 16 years.

The two “were originally charged with murder and robbery in the death of 25-year-old Jaime Valdovinos,” the publication said.

Valdovinos and another individual were targeted by Rojo and Alvarez for a robbery of “a large amount of marijuana” back in late September of 2019, according to Bay Area News Group.

NBC Bay Area reported at the time that Oakland police said that the “man who was with Valdovinos told police that Rojo and another suspect robbed Valdovinos and him of a large amount of marijuana,” and that the “surviving victim said that during a struggle to get the marijuana back, the two suspects shot and killed Valdovinos.”

Rojo, who was 20 at the time, “was charged with special circumstances murder” days after the shooting, according to the NBC affiliate. 

“Witnesses and video surveillance camera footage indicate that Rojo was in the rear seat of a vehicle in which Valdovinos and the other man were sitting, Oakland police Officer Michael Jaeger wrote in a probable cause statement,” the outlet reported at the time.

Alvarez, however, was not arrested until April of 2021.

Bay Area News Group has more background on the sentence of the two men.

“Police reports allege both Rojo and Alvarez fired guns during the course of the setup. The shooting happened when the victims were attempting to get the marijuana back, according to Oakland police,” the outlet reported this week.

“Investigators said in a court statement that Alvarez was identified as a suspect through ‘surveillance video and witnesses.’ The plea deal includes a court order for both defendants to stay away from the surviving victim and to not possess guns after their release from prison. Both men were originally charged with crimes that made them eligible for life without the possibility of parole.”

The disturbing case highlights the dangers that still exist within the illicit drug trade –– operations that Bay Area law enforcement continue to rein in.

Earlier this fall, law enforcement officials raided a warehouse in Oakland filled with millions of dollars worth of cannabis plants, a bust that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said was one of the biggest the Golden State has seen this year.

“We have a history of combating illegal outdoor cannabis grows, which has evolved to a broader range of operations including warehouse grows, in support of establishing a thriving legal marketplace,” Janice Mackey, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told High Times in an email. “CDFW’s cannabis enforcement program is always gathering intelligence, receiving information and conducting an array of investigations with our state and county partners on various aspects of the illegal cannabis supply chain.”

Local news station KGO reported that the “authorities eradicated 41,082 illegal cannabis plants and destroyed 1,841 pounds of processed cannabis” with an “estimated retail value [of] $36,930,300” in the raid.

The station also said that three firearms were recovered in the operation.

Last year, an armed robbery at an Oakland dispensary resulted in the theft of $100,000 worth of products.

Alan Sorrentino, the owner of C.R.A.F.T. (Citizens Research Alliance for Therapeutics) Cannabis, the dispensary that was robbed, explained what transpired to local news station KTVU. Just before 3 a.m., Sorrentino said the robbers “cut the power to the whole building.”

From KTVU:

“The theft happened early Saturday morning and the owner says one of the thieves brandished a gun at him when he showed up at the store…Sorrentino says the intruders seemed to have an orchestrated plan that ultimately helped them get over $100,000 in stolen product. ‘Unfortunately they were able to get away with all of our inventory basically, so we’ve had to shut down,’ Sorrentino said. Sorrentino says his alarm company notified him of the burglary early Saturday morning and they both called Oakland police multiple times. He says he went over to the building and one of the suspects approached him with a gun, so he quickly left the area. He says he could see them on the surveillance video the whole time. ‘I sat and watched them pretty much loot the whole building for at least three hours,’ Sorrentino said. The robbers left a trail of destruction behind them: Busted walls where a secured safe was removed, broken door locks, and broken stair steps. Oakland police say there were at least three vehicles involved in the burglary.”

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Four men are facing a slough of criminal charges after federal authorities said they robbed a series of trucks in the Philadelphia area, including one carrying a shipment of dimes from the United States Federal Reserve.

According to an article by the Associated Press, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently unsealed an indictment against four Philadelphia men who allegedly broke into and robbed several trucks in the Philadelphia area before stealing just over $234,000 worth of freshly-minted dimes on April 13 of this year.

The alleged thieves reportedly left dimes scattered all over the roadway from quickly trying to bag and transfer a portion of the cargo, which weighed more than six tons in total, from the truck to their getaway van according to the AP. Federal authorities said the four suspects they arrested for the theft of the dimes were also believed to have robbed several other trucks in the area around the same time. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that several other cargo loads containing shrimp, frozen crab legs, meat, beer and liquor were suspected to have been stolen by the following suspects:

25-year-old Rakiem Savage, 31-year-old Ronald Byrd, 30-year-old Haneef Palmer and 32-year-old Malik Palmer who all reside in the Philadelphia area have been charged with a laundry list of felony crimes related to these incidents, according to a recently unsealed federal indictment. Charges filed  included robbery, theft of government money, conspiracy and more.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said that the crimes all carried a similar mode of operation where the men would find trucks resting in parking lots or rest areas, forcibly remove drivers from their trucks and use bolt cutters to gain access to the cargo – which would then be removed and loaded onto a white box truck. The stolen goods were later put up for sale via various internet-based mediums.

Authorities alleged that Savage stole 60 cases of Jose Cuervo from a truck in March. Following that incident, authorities alleged that six refrigerators were stolen just two weeks before the dime theft by Savage and the Palmers. During this incident, the suspects reportedly pulled the driver from his vehicle and made him lie under their white box truck while they unloaded and reloaded the stolen refrigerators. Additionally, after the April 13 dime theft, messages were sent from Byrd to several others via the internet explaining that Byrd had stolen shrimp for sale, the market rate for which was not immediately clear.

Philadelphia police told the Inquirer they did not believe the accused thieves were aware of what was in the truck on April 13 when they stumbled upon just over $750,000 in dimes fresh from the Federal Reserve. Surveillance video showed six men in gray hoodies approach the truck, which police said had pulled over in a parking lot to rest while en route to Miami. The men broke open the truck’s cargo area with bolt cutters and began transferring the dimes to their box truck. Surveillance video also showed the men stealing recycling bins as they made their way out of the area, presumably to help unload the stolen coins.

The AP article said that after the April 13 dime theft, thousands of dollars in conversions of dimes to cash were recorded in Coinstar machines in Maryland. Equally large deposits of dimes were also made to at least four Philadelphia bank branches, according to a federal indictment obtained by the Associated Press. However, the value exchanged at the coin machines was only a small percentage of the value of the total haul of dimes, meaning the vast majority of the dimes remained unaccounted for at the time this article was written.

“If for some reason you have a lot of dimes at home,” Philadelphia police spokesperson Miguel Torres told the New York Times in April, “this is probably not the time to cash them in.”

If convicted of all the charges they have been indicted on, the four suspects could collectively face decades behind bars, according to the article by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Legal representatives for all four men did not immediately respond to requests for comment by either the Associated Press or the Philadelphia Inquirer. All four men were reportedly still in FBI custody but were scheduled to appear before a judge on Monday.

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Attacks on dispensaries in the Los Angeles area in California are getting more and more brazen and in some cases, violent. The latest incident involved suspects who drove a carjacked vehicle directly into an illegal cannabis dispensary in downtown Los Angeles in a smash-and-grab incident.

On July 12, a group of suspects carjacked a vehicle and robbed an unlicensed dispensary in the downtown L.A. area.

“Los Angeles police officers responded to a report of shots fired near Hooper Avenue and 15th Avenue in downtown L.A. at about 4 a.m. Wednesday,” CBS News reports. “A black car was driven through a steel-roller front gate at an illegal marijuana dispensary near the intersection.

Around five or six suspects reportedly stole a car—with the driver inside—at Washington Blvd. and Central Ave., about a half-mile away from the dispensary.

The suspects forced the driver in the trunk of the vehicle, then drove to the dispensary and smashed the car through the front of the building, most likely in reverse. After the suspects looted the dispensary, the victim was reportedly released at the scene of the break-in.

The carjacked driver was unharmed and is reportedly cooperating with police.

After the robbery, the suspects fled in a second vehicle and remained at large as of Wednesday morning.

The details of the amount of cannabis and cash that were taken was not released to the public, and since it was an unlicensed dispensary, they are unlikely to recover financially.

More Brazen Crimes in Los Angeles

Sound familiar? Escalations in violence or brazenness has been observed at several recent events in the Los Angeles area, which leads to retail workers having to work under stressful conditions.

Green Qween, a dispensary in downtown Los Angeles, was targeted by thieves for the second time since it opened last year. Green Qween co-owner Andrés Rigal told Eyewitness News the suspects tried to pull off the front gate using their car for leverage.

In that case, the suspects resorted to using power tools to cut open the front gate. Businesses can rarely survive incidents like this.

“You know, when this keeps happening … we’re not corporate funded, so we’re barely surviving as it is and the good thing is, every day is better for us, but when something like this happens, it’s such a devastating blow for us and it’s so hard to recover,” said Rigal.

Last December, a group of thieves broke into Silver Lake Caregivers Dispensary Group, a dispensary in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, stealing hundreds of pounds of cannabis.

“They seemed organized though, like they’ve done this before,” Toby Stein, owner of the Silver Lake Caregivers Dispensary Group, told KTLA.

In 2017, Los Angeles city leaders fielded the idea of a city-owned bank to help fund small businesses, development of affordable housing and cannabis entrepreneurs.

Other states face similar problems and it’s not unique to California. A 2022 proposal in Washington imposes harsher penalties for robbing cannabis retailers was approved by lawmakers in the state Senate last week. 

The legislation, Senate Bill 5927, would tack on a year to the prison sentence of an individual convicted of first or second degree robbery of a cannabis shop—which, as local television station KING 5 noted, is “the same sentence that is given to someone who robs a pharmacy.”

The latest move on SB 5917 took place on March 10, when it was returned and sent back to Senate Rules Committee for third reading.

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The cannabis industry in the Caribbean mirrors the danger of the U.S. cash-only industry and the lure for criminals given the large amounts of cannabis and cash. In the town of Vermont (not to be confused with the U.S. state) on the island country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) in the Caribbean, five would-be armed robbers were thwarted on Friday, Jan. 27 by a deputy guard at a dispensary. Due to quick thinking and a fast response, the perpetrators were caught mid-robbery while they were still at the site. 

Green Lava Labs is a medical cannabis company and dispensary in the Queensbury area of Vermont. As one of the first Class-C license holders in the country, a great deal of cannabis and a steady cash flow made it a prime target.

St. Vincent Times reports that five men, one brandishing a gun and another brandishing a “cutlass,” allegedly entered the dispensary at 2:00 am at night forcefully and injured at least one person. The five assailants allegedly attempted to break into the dispensary’s storage area. But a deputy from an armed security agency was quickly dispatched, returning fire and forcing the robbers to flee before they could make off with the loot.

“Our armed security operative engaged the bandits directly, firing several shots, causing the bandits to flee, without being able to break into the building and storage rooms,” Sheriff PSS Inc stated.

A deputy was dispatched to the premises promptly within 15 minutes, while the suspects were still on-site, officials said.

“Operations Control was contacted and our Executive Director Mr. Jason Greene and Operations Commander Mr. Cox responded immediately to provide additional support. The police [were] contacted and responded promptly within 15 minutes,” the release reads.

A caretaker who was on the premises was injured during the incident. 

“The live-in caretaker on the estate was injured during the incident and taken to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital by Sheriff PSS Inc for medical attention,” the report continued.

“Sheriff takes this opportunity to remind the nation that we are serious about asset protection as SVG’s only tactical security agency. We stand ready to serve citizens and the business community as the #1 source for reliable, competent and efficient Asset Protection Agents and Security solutions.”

Government officials at SVG issued the first licenses to cultivate medical cannabis in 2019. 

Green Lava Labs Leader in the Caribbean

Green Lava Labs was launched in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Nov. 15, 2019. Green Lava was among the first companies to be granted a Class-C Medical Marijuana Cultivation license in the country. The license allows them to extract, import, export, dispense, and cultivate up to 25 acres of cannabis.

Green Lava has the capacity of over 8,000 pounds of cannabis per year and future plans to reach the full capacity of its allowed 25 acres that should allow the company to produce over 35,000 pounds of cannabis per year.

The company’s grand opening was significant enough to attract Prime Minister Dr. Ralph E. Gonsalves; Minister of Agriculture, Saboto Caesar; a Senior Official of the Medical Cannabis Authority; and officials to attend.

The company offers flower, pre-rolls, CBD-infused products, and more.

The company also has other locations including one in Jamaica.

Business is once again booming in SVG’s medical cannabis industry, Minister of Finance, Camillo Gonsalves reported earlier this year. This follows a slow, discouraging period due to COVID pandemic restrictions and devastation caused by the La Soufriere volcano eruption.

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A noticeable uptick in cannabis delivery driver robberies is being reported in Michigan, as authorities scramble to control the problem before it snowballs into something worse. The Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) issued a bulletin Tuesday notifying cannabis businesses there’s been a rise in criminal activity.

Macomb Daily reports that authorities are concerned about the rise in crime in the metropolitan Detroit area. As delivery drivers are forced to carry around dangerous amounts of cash and/or cannabis, they are like sitting ducks with a target on their heads.

According to a recent bulletin issued by the CRA on Jan. 17, officials have “identified a pattern in reported criminal activity involving the drivers,” reporting 13 thefts of cannabis products, all within the past six weeks. The MRA regularly posts bulletins when an issue arises, including when a dangerous pattern emerges.

A rash of burglary incidents have been reported in Hazel Park and Ferndale in Oakland County, Utica in Macomb County, Westland, Hamtramck and Detroit in Wayne County, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Lansing. The burglaries began piling up since the beginning of December 2022.

The data shows that the thefts typically occurred at houses at the time of delivery. In some cases, armed robberies took place in which the drivers were assaulted and their vehicles were stolen.

When a robbery takes place, time is ticking for the victims involved. “Licensees and applicants are reminded that the administrative rules require they notify the CRA and local law enforcement authorities within 24 hours of becoming aware of—or within 24 hours of when the licensees should have been aware of—the theft or loss of any product or criminal activity at the marijuana business,” the CRA said in a press release.

“All suspicious activity should be reported to the CRA (using the form available here) and local law enforcement. Questions can be sent to the Cannabis Regulatory Agency Field Operations.”

Licensees are also reminded to watch for and report suspicious activity to police and the CRA. The reporting form is available online.

Not Just the Delivery Drivers are At Risk

Delivery drivers aren’t the only ones being targeted by criminals. Just last November, the CRA said 117 break-ins took place at cannabis businesses from April through November 2022. Authorities also said that the incidents took place primarily at adult-use stores rather than medical cannabis dispensaries.

The CRA says the following tactics were common among break-ins: A suspect vehicle parked in the far reaches of the parking lot or across the street; use of a tool such as a hammer or crowbar to enter the back door; or suspects enter the business and take as much as they can and leave before authorities arrive. A majority of the break-ins took place between 12 a.m. and 7 a.m. throughout West Michigan this year, according to the CRA.

It’s not just happening in Michigan, but in Oregon and Washington state as well. Earlier this year, about 30 robberies happened in a one-month span in Washington.

The surges in robberies at licensed cannabis shops and among delivery drivers adds to the urgency for a need for a bill such as the SAFE Banking Act. The SAFE Banking Act, which did not go as far legislatively as people initially suspected in 2022, would solve many of these problems.

“It makes absolutely no sense that legal businesses are being forced to operate entirely in cash, and it’s dangerous—and sometimes even fatal—for employees behind the register,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

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